Illustration courtesy of Mel M (JSP)

Jewish Students for Palestine held its first meeting on April 5th.

As members of Jewish Students for Palestine (JSP), we are part of a long history of anti-Zionist Jews. Anti-Zionism has existed among Jewish populations since before World War II, as explained by Benjamin Balthaser, a scholar and associate professor at Indiana University South Bend. In the early 20th century, Zionism was one of many theoretical movements across various Jewish populations. As Balthaser outlines, one faction of anti-Zionist Jews — who advocated for the right to self-determination in the Eastern European countries in which they were raised — were wiped out during the Holocaust. In the years directly following the war, it was a prevailing opinion among American Jews that Zionism and its values did not represent the Jewish majority: a part of history also explained by Zachary Lockman, professor of Middle Eastern Studies at New York University.

Zionism is a direct extension of British settler colonialism in the Middle East. As Charles Glass writes, “Without Great Britain, there would not have been an Israel for the Yishuv, or a catastrophe — nakba, in Arabic — for Palestine’s Arab majority.” Palestinians remember the early days of Israel as a project of forced removal from their homes. These early colonial intentions linger in modern policy, as the Israeli military has displaced 1.7 million people, killed over 30,000 individuals, and contemplated a transfer (in other words, ethnic cleansing) of Palestinians into Egypt.

Despite Jews widely opposing Zionism in the 1930s and 1940s, today it is said that Israel’s existence is intrinsic to our safety as a people. Those of us who recognize that the assumption Israel is the only place we are safe is, in part, predicated on antisemitic rhetoric (telling us we do not belong elsewhere) often feel ostracized. We feel as if we are betraying our community and the one place which we have been told protects us. But we know that is far from true. 

In recent days, the colonialist ideology of Zionism and subsequent genocide of the Palestinian people has played out on the world stage. As this occurs, JSP’s condemnation of Israel and its actions has caused us to reflect on the historical relationship between anti-Zionism and the Jewish community. As anti-Zionists, we have faded into a loud minority voice in Jewish spaces, and the history of Jewish resistance to Israel is hardly taught. The stories of The Bundists (who were largely massacred during World War II) and the American Council for Judaism (who began organizing in the 1940s) remain unspoken. Instead, Jews are told that Zionism is what we all wanted all along. 

According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of white evangelical Christians in support of Israel’s government is comparable to the percentage of Jews in support of Israel’s government. This is shown in the statistic, “White evangelical Protestants are most likely to express favorable views of the Israeli government (71%). Among Jewish adults, 54% say they have a favorable view of the Israeli government.” Archival data shows that 10 years ago, more evangelical Christians than Jews believed that God gave Israel to the Jewish people. Despite the large presence of evangelical Christians in support of Israel — lobbying congress and dominating the American conservative Zionist sphere — the issue of Israel and Palestine is too often painted as a purely Jewish-Muslim conflict. In reality, Zionism is not as strongly connected to Judaism as popular narrative tends to depict it. Many Jews have continually opposed Zionism, and many evangelical Christians have been integral in supporting Israeli occupation efforts. 

In 2012, scholar Judith Butler wrote the book “Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism.” In a review of Butler’s book, Chaim Gans of Tel Aviv University wrote that “it is in the name of Judaism itself, so Butler argues, that the Zionist movement should be totally rejected.” As members of JSP, we call on our experiences as Jews to drive our anti-Zionist beliefs. 

From Lila: I used to work at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. I know what genocide looks like. I use the tools I have learned in Jewish institutions to call out injustices where I see them, including in Israel and Palestine. At Hillel, in the d’var Torah I gave, I described how my section showed us that we are allowed to pick and choose aspects of Judaism that work for us. We do not need to subscribe to every single aspect and law of a religion to be considered legitimate followers. Why is our allegiance to a less-than-century-old state suddenly a litmus test of our validity as Jews? 

As writers of this article, our connections to faith, journeys to supporting anti-Zionism, and Jewish experiences are not a monolith. But one thing is certain: our Jewish beliefs of love, respect, and constant questioning are integral to our support of a free Palestine. 

This article is focused on the history of Jewish anti-Zionism, not an explanation of what a free Palestine looks like to us. Nevertheless, we find it important to briefly note that calling for a free Palestine is not asking for it to be free of anyone, but rather free from settler violence and incessant attacks.

JSP is part of a group of Jews who have not fallen into Zionist ideology; Jewish students at other universities, including MIT, Harvard, and UPenn, have openly expressed their anti-Zionist sentiments through similarly written statements. We encourage more Jewish students to question Zionist indoctrination and share their unabridged moral truth. 

We reject the idea that the only path to Jewish safety is a colonizing, genocidal ethnostate founded on massacres (which bear similarities to pogroms, as described even by Israeli news sources) and mass expulsions, and engaged in an endless war against civilians. As Jews in America, subscribing to the history-erasing lies that we’ve been told — that Israel, and only Israel, will keep us safe — is a betrayal of our values and basic human senses. Such a limited analysis kneecaps our ability to recognize, acknowledge, and combat antisemitism. Such an analysis forces us to imagine Palestinians’ lives as less valuable than our own — to excuse their genocide and to close our eyes to the Israeli present, just as we have been taught to close our eyes to America’s past (acknowledging the risk of conflating two very different geopolitical situations under one umbrella of colonialism). We must be honest in our understanding of history and recognize that, as Jews and as people, we are, and always have been, a part of the anti-Zionist movement.